Used by God

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

USED BY GOD

Acts 15:30-35

30 The men were sent off and went down to Antioch, where they gathered the church together and delivered the letter. 31 The people read it and were glad for its encouraging message. 32 Judas and Silas, who themselves were prophets, said much to encourage and strengthen the brothers. 33 After spending some time there, they were sent off by the brothers with the blessing of peace to return to those who had sent them.   35 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, where they and many others taught and preached the word of the Lord.

NIV

Here we have three types of speaking engaged with the people in Antioch. We see those how spoke as prophets and those who taught and preached. The Greek words reveal to us the true sense of what was happening within the church at Antioch. Judas and Silas were inspired speakers, which is they shared words as they were inspired by God. Paul and Barnabas taught, instructed the people and they preached or declared the good news, the Gospel. These are three distinct different messages of speakers to hearers. Should we not have that in the church today? Why was it only for then and not for us today? Surely we do have teachers in the church today. We also have people who speak as they are inspired by God, at least we hope they are, although we certainly do not call them prophets, but rather pastors. Yet the position of pastor is more like a shepherd then a prophet, leading and protecting the flock. So perhaps we may not have the inspired speakers, the prophets in the church today. Certainly those who we call preachers are not preachers unless they are declaring the good news, the gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ. We tend to call those who do that evangelists, not preachers, which is the root portion of that Greek word. What do we learn here? What can we take to heart from this? First we could learn a lesson from the people who read the letter and were glad for the encouraging message. We could suppose they were glad they did not have to endure circumcision, but simply had to do a little changing in their eating habits and of course in their sexual behavior. We should be glad when we hear messages about how we should live. Each time we hear or read about how we should behave or some change that we should make in our lives, we should be glad, because that means we would be drawing closer to God, pleasing him, which is what we should be striving to do. We need to be open to hearing inspired speakers, people who hear from God and share what he is saying to them. We need to be open to those who teach the truth of the word, instructing us as to how we should incorporate the word into our lives. We should be open to those and encourage those who preach the gospel to the unsaved, although it is good for us to hear that message encourage and remind us of God’s grace, his favor toward us that we do not merit. We need all of these messages, these speakers in our lives so we can grow in our spirits. It is also such a great honor and blessing, but most of all humbling to be used by God for the benefit of others. Silas, Judas, Barnabas and Paul were certainly used by God. Could we desire anything else, but to be used by God.